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Business of the House

I think that the OBR was looking ahead many decades and outlining the impact of increased longevity on the national health service and pensions. It said that if nothing else was done, that might be a consequence. For the hon. Gentleman to attribute that long-range forecast to anything we have done in the past 14 months is heroic. To minimise the impact on the public finances of the sort of demographic changes that I have outlined, we have increased the state retirement age and moved from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. We are therefore taking steps that hopefully will reduce the necessity for an increase in income tax.